What the what!

Monthly Archives: January 2013

A local contractor installed a new furnace and water heater for me on 1/21/2013. The install appeared to go well. The furnace is keeping our house warm and the water heater runs without making crazy noise and it is producing hot water. All is perfect in the world, well not quite…

While checking out the water heater (AO Smith GDHE-50) I noticed that the lower side connect was quite cold, the brass drain was very cold too. My three other water heaters never exhibited anything like this when they had hot water in them. The valve and the side connectors were quite warm when the unit was at standby.

To quantify how much cold water is in the heater I did the following experiment. Immediately after the unit completed a heating cycle (120F, 8F differential) I turned the water heater off. I then closed the cold water value to the water heater and opened a hot water faucet to allow air into the system. Then I systematically drained a gallon of water at a time from the water heater drain and took its temperature with a digital thermometer, repeating until I hit water that was 120F. My best guess at starting was that there is at least 16 gallons of fairly cold water in the heater as each vertical inch is just under a gallon of water and the side connector is 16″ off the floor.

The water heater had 11 gallons of water < 60F. The results of this experiment indicate to me that something is wrong. Past water heaters, I was able to get very hot water instantly out of the drain.

American water heater company, the maker of the water heater I installed issued me a return authorization number for the water heater that would not run when installed per the instructions. I installed the new one (1/5) and this one works better (it will start), but still not great. It makes noise when starting and the flame is quite yellow and has bad shape. I have posted videos of the start and flame for technical support to look at.

I contacted technical support again via email and sent them video footage of the poor flame. After a few days technical support contacted me again and FedEx’d me a smaller orifice to try, a #30. The heater comes standard with a #29. I got this smaller orifice and installed it and the unit ran very poorly http://youtu.be/ml-uqXvCrp8

At this point I gave up, I contacted a local contractor and scheduled an install of a new furnace and water heater. I was done trying to make this water heater work.

The replacement water heater was returned to Lowe’s for a refund. Lowe’s was very helpful throughout this very frustrating experience.